Thursday, 12 April 2018

It’s been awhile but it’s time for a tournament report! (Waits patiently while you all recover from the shock)

It’s very odd as this isn’t Malifaux as my usual tournament write up, nor is it in one of my usual tournament venues. This does mean I can’t just copy and past the usual report and change the name of the event.

It’s was time for my first Guild Ball event! About a month before I had managed to grab the last ticket for the very popular Harlow Homerun 3, this may have been a bit over eager on my part as to that point I’d played two games of season three and had one model painted of the Goldsmiths. But always up for a challenge (that’s a lie I’m never up for a challenge I’d prefer a nap to be honest) I grabbed a ticket, asked loads of questions, watched some YouTube videos, and painted late into the night to prepare myself for the big day.

Monday, 26 March 2018

I realised in all the excitement of doing nothing in particular that I never got around to writing up a post about the Rage bust I had the pleasure of painting.

This very cool bust was a gift from my D&D group (I say gift, they say bribe to not drop a dozen angry dragons on them). He's an offical Guild Ball bust produced by BrokenToad who I'm a huge fan of. The bust did take a bit of work to prep, there was a few tabs that needed removing, mould lines and flash to clean but nothing too bad.

Due to the terrible weather i then had to wait patiently (not my strong point) to get the angry fella primed. I kept the hand separate so that I could still get to the areas behind easily.

Thursday, 22 March 2018

Okay so somehow I appear to be back playing Guildball, back in season one I gave it a go with high hopes and good intentions but it never really clicked. All the games I had were fun but also forgettable. I always felt a bit like a spectator to the match instead of a player.

Swing back to now and due to my break up with Malifaux I’ve decided to give it another chance, already season three feels like a better game (based on my two muddled games so far) I’ve jumped in with a new team as then I can partly blame my previous failures on Union instead of myself.

I’ve decided to go with Blacksmiths, not because of their clever play style or anything quite so rational. Instead it was because I’d been practicing my NNM and was looking for something to use it
on. I decided to go with a different look than I’d seen and paint them up in gold effectively making them “Goldsmiths” (... honestly that thought process is the whole reason I’m going back to Guildball, and knowing my luck Steamforged will release a Goldsmith Guild next voiding my genius)

Now I haven’t played enough to offer any sort of tactical analysis of the Goldsmiths so instead my next few post will be mainly about painting the team and also preparing for my first Guildball tournament... oh yeah that’s my other genius plan, to “motivate” me to actually play I’ve signed up to a tournament. (In for a penny, in for a crushing defeat. Like the old saying goes).

Monday, 29 January 2018

I've been super quiet about Malifaux recently. For various reasons getting a load of models to central London with a load of equipment is just too time consuming. When I started Malifaux it was an easy to access skirmish game. You could have a couple of crew boxes, a few supplemental boxes, cards, tape measure and maybe a few tokens.Now though the game has ballooned in a huge range and I can't really keep up in a way that is enjoyable. I'll still do some painting and hopefully some casual play.Luckily the group decided to do some D&D. I was a bit curious and so I decided to give it a try. I was almost instantly hooked. Here was a game without the limitations of the table top. A game that rewarded the effort of making a background, being imaginative and focused on a social gathering.This is now my game of choice. I'd like to share my journey with you. In this series, I'll cover how to get started, a guide to getting a character to the table, the pros and cons of optimisation, why you might want to kick someone out of a group and a better way to handle it, the various accessories, podcast reviews and YouTube including the mighty Critical Role.Let's get a couple of questions out of the way before we get started on getting started.What is Dungeons and Dragons?

Thursday, 25 January 2018

<tap tap> Is this thing on? Oh....errr hi! So it's been a while huh? How's the family?

One thing I've always been very much in favour of in the hobby is the promotion of awesome women in the hobby as a whole, whether they be players, painters, sculptors or all of the above and more I've not thought of. It's why I've been demoing Malifaux at Salute for the last 2 years, trying to get more women engaged and interested in the game and the hobby as a whole.

This year however has seen a bit of a switch - as the stand where I usually demo has decided to run demos of the new game coming out from Wyrd called The Other Side. The models look cool but the cost and the size of the game has precluded me from backing it, which isn't exactly ideal for me trying to sell it to people. So I am (hopefully!) going to be running demos/helping out for the lovely Annie of Bad Squiddo Games. And because Annie is very very awesome, she has also sent me a sneak preview model from her Freya's Wrath Kickstarter.

Monday, 22 January 2018

Well this is a bit embarrassing isn’t it, our little twice weekly blog has crawled to a bit of a halt, to the point where twice monthly would be a surprise and twice yearly would be an improvement.

I’ll hold my hands up on this one as I’ve not posted in ages due to a complete lack of shit being given about gaming in general. This has a filter down effect on the rest of the group. Not in the way that I’m any sort of boss or leader to this mob, think of me as more like a grumpy stepdad who doesn't care if the kids do their homework.

So I figure I’ll have to step up and write something so I can at least pretend to be a good example. The problem is I’m not really doing much gaming to ramble about, and I’m not talking to enough idiots to warrant a rant. That leaves me with the option to write about the absence of gaming that I’m experiencing.

Thursday, 26 October 2017

Finally getting around to some hobby, which along with everything else seems to have taken a bit of a slump lately.
I had an urge to paint a bust which is fast becoming one of my favourite types of painting to do, and I just so happened to have a box of busts from Salute crying out for some paint.
The set is based on Wonderland but slightly more twisted ( or more openly twisted as Alice in wonderland is already pretty dark) they’re advertised as transition busts meaning the scale is a bit more friendly towards painters used to working on minis (I believe?) Check our Broken toads website for a better look and an actual explanation.

First up was the Hatter, who has a face that is really screaming to be the focus of the piece.